Recover

Recoversingle channel video12 mins​2017

The video "Recover" was shot mostly without the kayaker knowing that I was filming. I accidentally came across this man and was simply intrigued by his meditative movements, his focus and how his body and the canoe seem to merge into one. He'd be upside down, disappearing into the water, sometimes just long enough to make you wonder if he'd ever make it back up. He'd make the most beautiful moves, very dramatic and exercised with the greatest precision. Almost ritualistic. I had no idea what the man was doing in the water, and I'd never seen anything like it before. I later learned that the kayaker is practising so called 'qayaq rolls'.

The rolling is intriguing to watch. The disappearing into the sea and the miraculous recovery. The exhaustion. The try and fail. The try and succeed. I saw in it a poetic performance showing the thin line between life and death and the balancing act in between. One can only be up side down in the water for so long, a bit longer and you'd actually drown. Falling and getting up again. Giving up, continuing.

It reminded me also of the prints I've made on Shakespeare's character Ophelia. How she neglects herself from drowning, how she becomes one with the water. How floating on the water is literally floating on that thin line between life and death. As us humans can't breathe underwater.

As I edited the video I knew I wanted to film him again. It took me about a year to find my anonymous kayaker again. Thank you Hitoshi Maida for everything. Singapore 2017.